2022 Trade Deadline

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, sabretooth said:

The far more common way in which a team adapts hitting approaches is by getting new hitters that fit that approach. 

Bingo. It took a generation to build this set of MLB hitters. If they want to change it, it will take just as long to reverse it.

[sabretooth]

28 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Aye! There's the rub.

What happens when (assuming they were to) they finally find out unequivocally and undeniably, that throwing sliders and/or relievers pitching back to back both damage arms? How can they step back from things so ingrained into the game, and in the former case, traditionally impossibly to enforce even if they had wanted to? That is the interesting thing too, today you could outlaw a pitch like the slider and you could know in real time whether the pitcher tried to throw one and rule it balk. That was never a possibility until very recently but it does open up a whole set of possibilities that may never have previously been considered.

Yeah I wasn't even imagining anything as sweeping as what you are talking about....I was thinking more along the lines of coaching and influence to try and keep slider utilization at a level which corresponds to the player's known history.

I'm also wondering if there is existing or emerging research and medical indicators of player physiology that could inform coaches to help them optimize each pitcher's pitch profile. 

Conversely, I would guess that attempts to *strictly* control pitch utilization would be an exercise in futility or even counter-productive to performance and even health.

[sabretooth]

1 hour ago, kdog said:

Henning despises that the Tigers built the 2006-2014 run from free agency and trades. He thinks that all rebuilds have to be organic from the farm system and all free agent contracts are poison. He blames fans for demanding that money gets spent to improve. Then blames fans for the contracts turning out bad, not the people who signed the contracts.

Yeah, Henning's anti-FA attitude would describe a few guys on MTS.  It's a "money is the root of all evil" derivative.  While I don't *like* Free Agency, and I do like it when players stay with teams longer, Free Agency is one of the major tools that have to be used successfully in order to build a winner.

And basically no team ever becomes a winner by building organically without the benefit of pricey veterans from trades/FA.  The closest example to the "pure" team was the Royals, but even THEY needed to trade for and/or sign a bunch of key guys like Shields, J. Vargas, Guthrie, Volquez, E. Santana, and Wade Davis in order to enjoy their 3 winning seasons (practically their **only** winning seasons in the last 30 years). 

So, yeah, the "pure" approach simply isn't attempted anywhere and would never work if it was without all of the basic elements of successful roster construction.

[Longgone]

4 minutes ago, sabretooth said:

Yeah, Henning's anti-FA attitude would describe a few guys on MTS.  It's a "money is the root of all evil" derivative.  While I don't *like* Free Agency, and I do like it when players stay with teams longer, Free Agency is one of the major tools that have to be used successfully in order to build a winner.

And basically no team ever becomes a winner by building organically without the benefit of pricey veterans from trades/FA.  The closest example to the "pure" team was the Royals, but even THEY needed to trade for and/or sign a bunch of key guys like Shields, J. Vargas, Guthrie, Volquez, E. Santana, and Wade Davis in order to enjoy their 3 winning seasons (practically their **only** winning seasons in the last 30 years). 

So, yeah, the "pure" approach simply isn't attempted anywhere and would never work if it was without all of the basic elements of successful roster construction.

I dont think Henning has an "anti FA attitude". I think he noted the failure of the Dombrowski regime to invest in and provide a viable farm system. I think that criticism is valid, in spite of DD's success.

[SoCalTiger]

Jim Bowden FWIW

Detroit Tigers

Grade: D

Trades: Traded OF Robbie Grossman to Braves for LHP Kris Anglin; traded RHP Michael Fulmer to Twins for RHP Sawyer Gipson-Long.

The Tigers received two fringe prospects, at best, in the two deals they did make, and were asking too much for their closer, Gregory Soto, in the one they didn’t make. With relievers in demand, I was shocked the Tigers didn’t take advantage of the market by dealing Soto, their most tradable asset. According to several GMs, they just priced him too high. The Tigers could have dealt lefty Andrew Chafin and/or righty Joe Jiménez. They missed a golden opportunity to improve their organization’s pool of position players. Another disappointing deadline in the Motor City.

[sabretooth]

12 hours ago, Scottwood said:

My worry is it's going to be difficult to get a top flight up and coming GM to come to Detroit with the longstanding indifference the Illitch family has had to International scouting and player development. They don't even own the facility in the Dominican Republic and have arguably committed the least amount of resources of any MLB organization to its international operations.

It is hard to win as a small or medium market if you basically ignore 30% of the player pool. If you model the organization after the Rays or a team like that, but with a little more expensive big league payroll, then you have to commit to gaining every advantage you can. It will be hard to recruit anyone good if they don't think that ownership is willing to invest to try to win.

In addition to that, hiring a quant GM and completely overhauling player development in the minors and majors to a more new age hitting approach are the other main things I'd like to see change. I had mentioned this on the other site when Hinch's hires were first announced and he hired a lot of really good assistants or well thought of people in player development (like Fetter), but then went totally old school with a failed hitting coach. It's still an odd decision. The swing path of basically every Tigers hitter has been markedly worse this year and Tork's was seemingly changed right after he entered the minors.

Another benefit of a quality GM who is up and coming is they would also likely be able to recruit other up and coming staff (due to their connections) to head up player development, beef up the biomechanics department and analytics department, etc. Avila is far removed from that world so anyone he brings in, like a Ryan Garko, is going to be uninspiring.

As far as the hitting goes, there's external factors like the change in the baseball, yhe league switch for Baez, injuries, and other factors, but nevertheless the extreme inability for anyone not named Haase to consistently drive the ball creates a reasonable suspicion that a coaching/approach issue has somehow messed with players to the breaking point.

[Longgone]

1 hour ago, alex said:

Seems that Al does have 'some' scouting ability. He is a 'baseball guy'. He can go get a player if they are a FA or released and the boss gives him the green light. IMHO, I still feel he has a place in the organization and could still help.

It doesn't really matter if the GM has any ability to judge talent, it's all scout driven. You don't even need to be a good negotiator, the staff will value each player. A GM's primary job is to make sure the organization has all the resources to be successful, including hiring qualified people for each role. Has he done that? I dont know, he's definitely added resources, and he's added staff who are well regarded, but so far, the results just aren't there, that's all you really know.

[Tigermojo]

26 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

Jim Bowden FWIW

Detroit Tigers

Grade: D

Trades: Traded OF Robbie Grossman to Braves for LHP Kris Anglin; traded RHP Michael Fulmer to Twins for RHP Sawyer Gipson-Long.

The Tigers received two fringe prospects, at best, in the two deals they did make, and were asking too much for their closer, Gregory Soto, in the one they didn’t make. With relievers in demand, I was shocked the Tigers didn’t take advantage of the market by dealing Soto, their most tradable asset. According to several GMs, they just priced him too high. The Tigers could have dealt lefty Andrew Chafin and/or righty Joe Jiménez. They missed a golden opportunity to improve their organization’s pool of position players. Another disappointing deadline in the Motor City.

I have to disagree with his take. "improve..pool of position players." Why is July the time for this? July is usually the time to sell established players for prospects which he did. A low grade for the return may be justified. I don't know what kind of players were available.

To improve the position players makes much more sense during the offseason. Holding onto talent now may facilitate a trade in the winter of major leaguer for major leaguer. That's not usually the case in July.

Once the free agent market starts, there's usually some guys pushed out their roster and at that time we may be happy to have a Jiminez or Soto to package for a hitter.

 

[Tigermojo]

38 minutes ago, sabretooth said:

As far as the hitting goes, there's external factors like the change in the baseball, yhe league switch for Baez, injuries, and other factors, but nevertheless the extreme inability for anyone not named Haase to consistently drive the ball creates a reasonable suspicion that a coaching/approach issue has somehow messed with players to the breaking point.

It's all ping pong's fault.

[sabretooth]

40 minutes ago, Tigermojo said:

It's all ping pong's fault.

Yes, I totally forgot about that....the cursed ping-pong games 😄

[RaceDog]

Dinelson Lamet?

[Useful Idiot]

I really believe there never was serious interest in moving Soto. With years of control  remaining,  it would have required a "golden goose"  to pry him away.  Just no real incentive. 

[casimir]

1 hour ago, SoCalTiger said:

Jim Bowden FWIW

Detroit Tigers

Grade: D

Trades: Traded OF Robbie Grossman to Braves for LHP Kris Anglin; traded RHP Michael Fulmer to Twins for RHP Sawyer Gipson-Long.

The Tigers received two fringe prospects, at best, in the two deals they did make, and were asking too much for their closer, Gregory Soto, in the one they didn’t make. With relievers in demand, I was shocked the Tigers didn’t take advantage of the market by dealing Soto, their most tradable asset. According to several GMs, they just priced him too high. The Tigers could have dealt lefty Andrew Chafin and/or righty Joe Jiménez. They missed a golden opportunity to improve their organization’s pool of position players. Another disappointing deadline in the Motor City.

Seems harsh considering they were able to find a taker for Grossman.

[mtutiger]

3 minutes ago, casimir said:

Seems harsh considering they were able to find a taker for Grossman.

Yeah, the Grossman trade is more like a B for me.

D sounds about right for the Fulmer trade and the general strategy employed my the GM

[sabretooth]

2 hours ago, Longgone said:

I dont think Henning has an "anti FA attitude". I think he noted the failure of the Dombrowski regime to invest in and provide a viable farm system. I think that criticism is valid, in spite of DD's success.

DD had a viable farm system.  It produced MLB regulars (excluding relievers) at the rate of 2 to 3 a year, which is OK, but the players were generally not strong.

In any case, as the analysis below demonstrates, DDs farm system was far more impactful (directly on field and indirectly by way of trades) by his sixth year as GM (2010) than Avila's has been over the same period.

The players that DD drafted and traded prospects for had collectively better prospects for immediate and long-term production as of the close of 2010, than AAs draft picks have in 2022, AAs sixth year.

(I'm not listing or talking about relievers, my glance at both DD and AAs tenures looked about the same for relievers, FWIW)

I'm going to look at DDs draft picks from the perspective of what information/perspective was available in 2010, not based on what they did afterwards.

DD's drafts produced the following position players in MLB by 2010:

1. Maybin (who was traded for Miggy and FWIW was a decent regular by 2010)
2. C. Thomas (who had been a decent regular in 2009 but was in the minors by 2010)
3. Joyce (who was a decent regular by 2010)
4. Rhymes (who was a decent regular in 2010)
5. Wells (who contributed 1.5 WAR in the second half of 2010)
6. Avila (a poor hitting/strong D starting C in 2010) 
7. Boesch (a decent regular in 2010)
8. S. Sizemore (who was poor in 2010, but was considered to be a likely starting 3B)

Starting pitchers from DDs drafts:

    9. Verlander (great of course)

    10. Luke French (who had 5 good starts in 2009 and was traded for Jarred Washburn)

And in the wings:

- Nick C.

- Dirks

- D. Smyly

- Jacob Turner

That's 10 MLB players who had received at least fairly regular time in the MLB in or before 2010 or would in the following season(s), and four other guys in the wings who were anticipated to help the MLB club soon.

By 2010, DD had also traded prospects to get high-impact MLB players like:

- Miggy (Maybin and others who amounted to nothing)

- J. Peralta (G. Soto, who amounted to nothing),

He also acquired A. Gallaraga for Mike Hernandez (who amounted to nothing), who was a decent starting pitcher for several years.

That's 17 guys that DD had on the MLB club in 2010 who were drafted or acquired from the trade of draft picks who were contributing in 2010 and/or were about to contribute to major league clubs. 

In AAs first six years (including his first draft, 2016), we have the following MLB regular position players: 

1. Tork
2. Greene
3. you could kinda make an argument for K. Clemens, though he's been played less this year on a lousy team that needed anybody, versus the prospects in 2010 who (with the exception of Maybin, Sizemore, and Larish, who had been traded) played greater roles on a decent 2010 team with fewer "holes" to fill.

We also have the following starting pitchers:

     4. Manning

     5. Faedo (TJ surgery - recovered)

     6. Mize (TJ surgery - recovering)

     7. Skubal

     8. G. Hill

     9. Brieske (TJ surgery - recovered)

In the wings:

- Kriedler

- Carpenter

- Dingler

The other guys are A-ball at this point, at least several years out.

That's fewer than 10 MLB position players or starting pitchers contributing to MLB clubs in AA's first six years, fewer than 2 per year, and 3 guys in the wings, who are unlikely to match what Dirks and Smyly did in the next couple of years, and I don't think any of Kriedler, Carpenter, or Dingler have remotely the potential that Nick Castellanos apparently had in 2010 (and went on to fulfill). 

Saint Avila's strong suit and focus, drafting and development, has been a near-total bust....

....whereas DD, who was supposed to be the devil incarnate who neglected and raped our poor farm system, actually produced more on-field value from it **while the team was focusing on winning** than Avila has managed while the team has been losing nearly every year.

I know that people are going to say that it's unfair to lump Verlander, Miggy, Peralta in with the prospects, but that is how you BUILD A WINNER. 

***Even if you exclude Verlander, Miggy, and Peralta as trade products from drafted prospects from the equation***, it's STILL not at all clear to me that AAs draft picks at this time are going to do even as well as the rest of what DDs drafts produced directly in on-field performance.  I'm not giving Tork the benefit of the doubt at this moment, not until he starts to hit MLB pitching just a little bit.

Edited August 4, 2022 by sabretooth

[casimir]

Maybe I’m off here, I don’t know.  I wonder if teams look at the Tigers’ bullpen success as more creditable to Fetter than the individual pitchers?  Now, look, I get the pitchers are the ones on the mound throwing the baseball.  But it seems like the bullpen, which had been a sore spot for so long, suddenly did an about face with Fetter.  And the patchwork effort of the starting pitching rotation, my goodness, we can all agree it’s been simply unreal how they’re maintaining some semblance of decency.  So do teams look at the at and discount the value that they see in the Tiger pitchers as individuals?

[casimir]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

Yeah, the Grossman trade is more like a B for me.

D sounds about right for the Fulmer trade and the general strategy employed my the GM

I think that’s fair.

It’s really impossible for us to grade, however, because we don’t know what deals were discussed, how talks developed, etc.  There’s the anecdote about one insider saying Avila wanted an Aroldis Chapman type of return for Soto.  In fairness, how do we know that to be accurate?

[chasfh]

3 hours ago, SoCalTiger said:

Jim Bowden FWIW

Detroit Tigers

Grade: D

Trades: Traded OF Robbie Grossman to Braves for LHP Kris Anglin; traded RHP Michael Fulmer to Twins for RHP Sawyer Gipson-Long.

The Tigers received two fringe prospects, at best, in the two deals they did make, and were asking too much for their closer, Gregory Soto, in the one they didn’t make. With relievers in demand, I was shocked the Tigers didn’t take advantage of the market by dealing Soto, their most tradable asset. According to several GMs, they just priced him too high. The Tigers could have dealt lefty Andrew Chafin and/or righty Joe Jiménez. They missed a golden opportunity to improve their organization’s pool of position players. Another disappointing deadline in the Motor City.

He's not wrong.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

Yeah, the Grossman trade is more like a B for me.

D sounds about right for the Fulmer trade and the general strategy employed my the GM

I think D is right overall, regardless of the megamillions ticket, not just because of the reliever trades he made, but because of the reliever trades he didn't make.

[Tiger337]

3 hours ago, Longgone said:

It doesn't really matter if the GM has any ability to judge talent, it's all scout driven. You don't even need to be a good negotiator, the staff will value each player. A GM's primary job is to make sure the organization has all the resources to be successful, including hiring qualified people for each role. Has he done that? I dont know, he's definitely added resources, and he's added staff who are well regarded, but so far, the results just aren't there, that's all you really know.

I can't really say that Avila is as incompetent as people say.  I don't know enough.  I just see other re-building teams seemingly making more successful trades and acquiring more international talent and wonder why the Tigers lag behind.  After several years of re-building, the results are disappointing and I think it's time to move on.  

[gkelly]

It's almost like Avila just wanted to get rid of Fulmer; it seems like such a little return for someone who could really help a playoff team.  Fulmer is a legit late inning arm.  I am also glad that Avila didn't trade any of the other pieces from the bullpen because it would have just been giving guys away for nothing.

This is the house that Avila has constructed:  Probably the worst starting nine (DH included) in MLB.  Two #1 overall picks and neither one looks to be anything special (I know Torkelson is young but he looked completely overmatched this season).

An overachieving starting rotation...a very good bullpen.  A minor league system devoid of legit prospects.

It's silly to be mad at Avila.  He's already proven that he can't run a franchise successfully.  It's not his fault that he is still employed.

[Scottwood]

I think the game has passed by Avila and he hasn't caught up and he needs to be fired. Even just the entire stated strategy of first getting the pitching right and devoting tons of resources the first few drafts of Avila's tenure to pitching and then adding position players later makes no sense. Pitchers break and are unreliable. I do think the current front office would probably not have drafted Mize or Manning or Faedo as they are going after pitchers now with better raw stuff to build off of. Seeing that the past two drafts has been a positive if nothing else. But it is too little too late now.

I also think Illitch has been a really bad owner and the thing where the Tigers would add a few things to modernize the org each offseason (this year was new heads of player development, in 2021 they added new additional coaches to the minor leagues, in other years they added more technology, etc.) is probably more an Illitch thing rather than Avila. I'm guessing Avila or any baseball exec would have wanted a total overhaul 5 or 6 years ago as opposed to a little here and there since it still leaves you behind other organizations. In a recent podcast, Cody Stavenhagen from The Athletic mentioned that the Tigers have now realized that they are behind other orgs in injury prevention. So, they will probably add to their biomechanics department this coming off season now.  But, it is just more of the same. They constantly play catch up.

I think maybe every MLB org has their own facility in the Dominican Republic now, or at least are in the process of building their own. So, I'd guess the Tigers will eventually do that too and announce that one off season. Then, once they do that, they'll have to add actual resources there and try to catch up there. The Dodgers and other organizations have an entire research department in addition to an analytics department. So, the Tigers will probably add a small version of that a different offseason. But, I'd guess that is more of an Illitch thing than Avila. Either way, the Tigers are arguably the worst organization in MLB all things considered and requires a change in how ownership invests in the organization and in the way it is actually run from the GM and other baseball front office execs.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Scottwood

[mtutiger]

9 hours ago, chasfh said:

I think D is right overall, regardless of the megamillions ticket, not just because of the reliever trades he made, but because of the reliever trades he didn't make.

Basically my point.

[Biff Mayhem]

7 hours ago, gkelly said:

It's silly to be mad at Avila.  He's already proven that he can't run a franchise successfully.  It's not his fault that he is still employed.

.

[Longgone]

7 hours ago, gkelly said:

It's almost like Avila just wanted to get rid of Fulmer; it seems like such a little return for someone who could really help a playoff team. 

Well, he did need to be traded, cuz something is better than nothing.